Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Less than two weeks before the 2011 election, Andrew Scheer’s Regina-Qu’Appelle riding association in Saskatchewan transferred $3,000 to the Guelph Conservative campaign for candidate Marty Burke.

Elections Canada records suggest this was the only Conservative riding association outside Guelph to transfer cash to Mr. Burke’s campaign during the writ period.

Mr. Scheer has served as Conservative MP for the Saskatchewan riding of Regina-Qu’Appelle since 2004. It was only after the 2011 ballot that he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, which makes him president and referee of the Chamber.

Mr. Scheer’s office referred questions about the $3,000 to the Conservative electoral district association for Regina-Qu’Appelle.

The Speaker’s spokeswoman said Mr. Scheer, who sits on the board of his Saskatchewan riding association, wanted to help out Mr. Burke.

“He says that the candidate [Burke] was originally from Regina. His mother still lives in the riding. He has volunteered for Scheer before,” Heather Bradley said.

Ms. Baylis said she’s not sure how Guelph used the cash. “We never asked. How would we know what they needed it for? They may need more advertising, more brochures. We never specified and we never asked.”

She said the only criteria was that spending meet Elections Canada rules.

Ms. Baylis said she wrote a cheque for Guelph on April 21. The Burke campaign records filed with Elections Canada show it as received April 29, three days before the May 2 ballot.

She said her riding association has recorded it as a “forgivable loan” but one it never expects to be paid back.

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 24th, 2012

'Pierre Poutine' recorded another messageFake Liberal voicemail uploaded to RackNine

The mysterious "Pierre Poutine" who launched misleading robocalls into Guelph, Ont., on election day also recorded another voice message, ostensibly in support of the local Liberal candidate, in the riding.

Court documents filed Friday show the suspect at the centre of the vote suppression scandal referred to someone in the Conservative Party when he spoke to the owner of RackNine, the Edmonton voice-broadcasting company used to send the robocalls.

The apparently fake Liberal message was uploaded to Rack-Nine, along with a misdirecting fake Elections Canada call, but never sent. The second recording was revealed in a sworn statement by Al Mathews, the Elections Canada investigator leading the probe into more than 7,600 robocalls - more than previously reported - directing voters to the wrong polling stations on election day.

According to Mathews, the second message "had the appearance of being in support of the Frank Valeriote [Liberal Party] campaign in Guelph. The voice sounded to me as though computer generated rather than a script read by a person."

Poutine had set up a call display number with Rack-Nine, also not used, that corresponded to Valeriote's campaign office during the election. The suspect later deleted the Valeriote call but the recording was retained on the company's server and provided to Elections Canada.

The strange call in support of Valeriote raises the possibility that Poutine intended to use the synthesized voice message to annoy the Liberal candidate's backers. In other ridings, numerous voters have complained of live calls, some of them rude or aggressive, that purported to come from Liberal candidates' campaigns late at night or early in the morning.

A spokesman for Valeriote said Friday that their campaign never used RackNine.

"At no point during the election did Frank Valeriote's campaign use the services of RackNine, nor was the campaign aware of the company until recently," said Daniel Arsenault, the MP's constituency assistant.

"Elections Canada officials have played the recording to Mr. Valeriote in a recent meeting in which he confirmed that the recording was not from his campaign and is unaware who made it. Mr. Valeriote and his campaign have been open about all calls made during the campaign."

The Elections Canada investigation into the Guelph robocalls has focused on the campaign of Conservative Party candidate Marty Burke, who earlier this week denied any knowledge of who placed the calls.

According to Mathews' statement, RackNine owner Matt Meier said he was under a con-tract with the Conservative Party during the 2011 election that did not allow him to do business with other parties.

Meier said the "Pierre" who opened the account with his company two days before the election "referred to knowing someone in the Conservative Party" and had called on Meier's unlisted extension, asking for him by name.

"In Meier's view, these facts meant that someone must have given Pierre his contact information," Mathews wrote in the Information to Obtain a production order on Dec. 12.

Meier did not know his ser-vice was being used to send out the misleading calls and is cooperating with Elections Canada.

'Pierre Poutine' recorded another message(external - login to view)

mentalfloss

+1

#642

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 27th, 2012

Lawsuits to demand elections be annulled in 7 ridings

OTTAWA — Lawsuits will be filed to annul election results in seven ridings across the country, the Council of Canadians said Monday.

The group announced it would be supporting the lawsuits but did not reveal what ridings will be challenged. The details are to be unveiled today at an announcement in Ottawa.

The Council of Canadians says the lawsuits are based on "evidence of irregularities, fraud and other activities that affected the outcome of the 2011 election."

Due to legal requirements, the group will not be launching the legal action directly, said spokesman Dylan Penner. Instead, the legal challenge will come from voters in each of the seven ridings in question.

Penner would not say how the Council of Canadians would be involved or if it would foot the legal bills.

It appears one area that will be challenged is the Ontario riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming. Peggy Walsh Craig, a resident of the riding, is to take part in today’s announcement.

In that riding, Conservative challenger Jay Aspin surprisingly defeated heavily favoured Liberal incumbent Anthony Rota by just 18 votes. In late February, an investigation by the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia revealed pre-recorded calls were going out to Liberal supporters before the 2011 federal election directing them to the wrong place to vote.

As media attention intensified, more people came forward with stories of suspicious calls. Tens of thousands of people contacted Elections Canada.

Elections Canada is investigating about 700 complaints of fraudulent "robo-calls."

The Council of Canadians was formed in 1985 as a citizens organization to fight for social justice.

On its website, it has been soliciting stories of "misleading or harassing actions" surrounding the 2011 election.

One riding in question is Cape Breton North, where supporters of Liberal incumbent Mark Eyking complained of being sent to the wrong location to vote.

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

The Council of Canadians has some members with loose screws but if they have the evidence to proceed, all the power to them.

Liberalman

#644

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 27th, 2012

Robocalls worked because the Conservatives got a majority

mentalfloss

#645

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 28th, 2012

Oops! Tories dial up wrong number

AUTOMATED CALL . A Progressive Conservative robocall dialed up a wrong number last week.

Doug Smith, the father of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, received a call asking him which political party he supported.

When he identified himself as a Wildrose supporter, he was asked if he supported the party's cutting back on spending and cutbacks in schools and hospitals.

A recording of what Smith described as the "annoying" auto-mated call was played on a radio station, prompting numerous calls from dismayed callers. Wildrose accused the Tories of instigating a push poll to chase away potential Wildrose supporters.

PC party campaign strategist Stephen Carter defended the Tory-generated automated calls on Tuesday, saying the survey is meant to research why the Wildrose party is appealing to Albertans.

Carter said all the questions are factually accurate and the survey is not a push poll.

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 29th, 2012

Robo-call complaints received from about 200 ridings: Elections Canada

Canada’s chief electoral officer is rejecting any attempts to play down the extent of the voter-suppression tactics in the last election, expressing his outrage for the first time in public about fraudulent robo-calls made in the name of his impartial organization.
“It’s absolutely outrageous,” Marc Mayrand told a parliamentary committee. “It’s totally unacceptable in a modern democracy.”

Elections Canada has received complaints about phone fraud in the last election in about 200 ridings in 10 provinces and one territory. Mr. Mayrand said the complaints “cut pretty much across the whole country.”

It was the first indication from Elections Canada about the breadth of the complaints of automated and live calls that aimed to disrupt last year’s general election.

“To say the least, it’s unusual,” Mr. Mayrand said of the number and scope of the complaints.

Mr. Mayrand walked a fine line during his testimony, refusing to get into the details of ongoing investigations that are being probed by the Commissioner of Elections, while providing an update to MPs about his handling of the ongoing controversy.

He said that overall, Elections Canada has received 800 specific complaints about misleading or harassing phone calls across Canada in relation to the last election. He pointed out that 70 of the complaints came from Guelph, which is only a fraction of almost 7,000 misleading calls made on election day in the riding.

Mr. Mayrand also specifically urged political parties to stop contacting voters about changing poll locations during elections, adding that it is best for Elections Canada to handle that process through normal written procedures.

Mr. Mayrand added that all voters can register on site on election day, stating it provides a “safety valve” to deal with the inaccuracies.

While the Conservative MPs on the parliamentary committee repeatedly said they did not want to “minimize” the importance of the fraudulent calls, they continuously came back to the fact that the Elections Canada voters’ list is filled with mistakes.

The committee of procedure and house affairs has already re-invited Mr. Mayrand to come back before Parliament breaks for the summer.

In his opening statement on Thursday, Mr. Mayrand promised two reports to Parliament to deal with the current controversy. The first report will deal with recent evolutions in technology and issues such as robo-calls and social media, and their growing impact on elections, to be delivered within a year.

Secondly, Mr. Mayrand said before the next election (scheduled for 2015), he will make a report on weaknesses in the penalties that can be imposed when it comes to breaches of the Elections Act. In particular, Elections Canada is seeking the ability to levy administrative fines, which is easier to do legally than going through the court system in each case.

Mr. Mayrand also addressed what he called widespread misinformation about allegations of wrongdoing, saying that the media has reported misleading information about voter-identification issues in one Ontario riding. Mr. Mayrand said after looking into hundreds of allegations in one Toronto-area riding, only three questionable registrations of voters were found. (Is this the Tamil riding Colpers was talking about? Hmmmrrph...)

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

It's a quasi-story. A semi-story. The margarine of stories. The Diet Coke of stories. Just one calorie, not story enough.

Wait until robogas is $1.60 a litre. There will be no more stories.

Lurk moar.

Vanni Fucci

+3

#650

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 29th, 2012

Quote: Originally Posted by Locutus

This story is so passť.

The substitute teacher of stories.

It's a quasi-story. A semi-story. The margarine of stories. The Diet Coke of stories. Just one calorie, not story enough.

Wait until robogas is $1.60 a litre. There will be no more stories.

Lurk moar.

I was here and posting during the "Coalition Dayz" and man you shoulda heard the blue shirts screaming and whining and pissing themselves about how the lefties were usurping democracy...well that wasn't the case then, because coalition governments are legitimate and democratic, but launching a campaign of misdirection to opposition voters in an attempt to deny them their vote...now that is undemocratic, and if it happened to affect the outcome of the election in the slightest, then it needs to be addressed and those responsible held to account, and if it goes to the national campaign, well there'll be a lot to account for...

This isn't over, not by a long shot, there's just more facts to be gathered...

I was hoping for a more scathing report from Mayrand, but I can wait...

Fucci out.

taxslave

+2 / -1

#651

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Mar 29th, 2012

Fucci out.[/QUOTE]
Way out.

Dixie Cup

#652

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Apr 1st, 2012

Andrew Coyne was incorrect in stating that there were "thousands" of calls. Elections Canada stated there were "less than 800". Even so, that's disturbing. However, exaggeration simply makes people wonder what else has been misconstrude by the media and that maybe things aren't as bad as initially stated in the papers.

That's the problem with rushing to judgement. Until we have all the facts, everything is speculation. Lets wait and see what happens in the investigation. If someone is responsible, they should be "nailed to the wall" no matter who they are. This is a very serious issue.

JMO

mentalfloss

+1

#653

Re: Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election

Apr 24th, 2012

Robocalls targeted NDP, Liberal voters, survey finds

A survey recently conducted by a large Canadian polling firm offers strong evidence that there was a distinct pattern of misleading phone calls during last May's federal election that appears to have targeted supporters of parties other than the Conservatives, say reports.

Ekos Research Associates tells The Globe and Mail that its survey found that Liberal, NDP and Green party supporters in seven key ridings were much more likely to report receiving a telephone call in the final days of the election directing them to the wrong polling station than Conservative supporters in the ridings.

The calls included erroneous information about changes in voting station locations, as well as so-called "robocalls" that purported to be from Elections Canada.

The Ekos survey was commissioned by the Council of Canadians and performed in mid-April in the seven ridings where the advocacy group is now seeking new elections.

While all party supporters were more likely than Conservatives to receive the calls in the ridings in question, a full 29.5 per cent of Liberal supporters said they received a misleading call, compared to just 6.9. per cent of Consrvative supporters.

As well, voters in the ridings were 50 per cent more likely to have received "robocalls" than those in 106 other ridings used as a comparison.

"These results strongly suggest that significant voter-suppression activities took place that were targeted at non-Conservative voters," Ekos Research said in an affidavit filed as part of the Council of Canadians' legal challenge of the results in the seven ridings.

The pattern is "highly statistically significant and we can say with confidence that this is not an artifact of chance," Ekos president Frank Graves wrote.

The poll sampled 3,297 Canadians in the seven ridings, as well as a control group of 1,500 respondents in other ridings where there were no allegations of misleading calls. The survey was performed using an automated phone system, not with live poll workers.

Ekos says its results are accurate to within plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Elections Canada is currently reviewing more than 31,000 complaints of robocalls from people in every part of the country. Many said they received these calls after first getting a phone call to find out if they were voting Conservative.

The seven ridings Ekos surveyed were:

Yukon

Nipissing-Timiskaming in Ontario

Elmwood-Transcona in Manitoba

Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar

Winnipeg South Centre

Don Valley East in Toronto

Vancouver Island North

All were won by Conservative candidates by margins of less than 1.3 per cent, with the exception of the B.C. riding, in which the Conservative candidate won with a wider margin.

Trying to persuade someone not to vote, or stopping someone from voting, is illegal under the Elections Act.

The Council of Canadians is planning to hold a news conference Tuesday morning in which they will elaborate on the study's findings.